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Ellen Burns #2
Terminal Velocity
"In 1970 I realized that the Sixties were passing me by. I had never even smoked a joint, or slept with anyone besides my husband. A year later I had left Nicky, changed my name from Ellen to Rain, and moved to a radical lesbian commune in California named Red Moon Rising, where I was playing the Ten of Hearts in an outdoor production of Alice in Wonderland when two FBI agents arrived to arrest the Red Queen . . ."
So begins Blanche McCrary Boyd's brilliantly raucous account of self-styled feminist outlaws, their desperate adventures and extraordinary fates. Ellen, the narrator of Boyd's previous novel, The Revolution of Little Girls , this time pierces the heart of the sexual revolution in her quest to find a woman hero or--by default--to become one.
Ferociously paced, Terminal Velocity delineates six wonderfully engaging characters: Artemis Foote, for whom being rich, talented, and beautiful is a kind of game; Jordan, a messianic fugitive who becomes Ellen's lover; Amethyst Woman, a Marxist/Leninist dentist; Ross, a red-diaper baby and now a columnist for Ramparts; and Pearl, an art history professor turned hippie. At the center of this vortex is Ellen, prior to her transformation happily married and a rising young editor at a genteel publishing house in Boston. Together with these women, she is caught in the political and moral tailspin of the Sixties, living in a sexualized world-without-boundaries that leads them, eventually, to destruction, acceptance, and even redemption.
Deadpan funny and exquisitely moving, Terminal Velocity brings Boyd's lyricism, humor, and depth to material largely unexplored in American literature.
So begins Blanche McCrary Boyd's brilliantly raucous account of self-styled feminist outlaws, their desperate adventures and extraordinary fates. Ellen, the narrator of Boyd's previous novel, The Revolution of Little Girls , this time pierces the heart of the sexual revolution in her quest to find a woman hero or--by default--to become one.
Ferociously paced, Terminal Velocity delineates six wonderfully engaging characters: Artemis Foote, for whom being rich, talented, and beautiful is a kind of game; Jordan, a messianic fugitive who becomes Ellen's lover; Amethyst Woman, a Marxist/Leninist dentist; Ross, a red-diaper baby and now a columnist for Ramparts; and Pearl, an art history professor turned hippie. At the center of this vortex is Ellen, prior to her transformation happily married and a rising young editor at a genteel publishing house in Boston. Together with these women, she is caught in the political and moral tailspin of the Sixties, living in a sexualized world-without-boundaries that leads them, eventually, to destruction, acceptance, and even redemption.
Deadpan funny and exquisitely moving, Terminal Velocity brings Boyd's lyricism, humor, and depth to material largely unexplored in American literature.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 1997
4 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Blanche McCrary Boyd
10 books36 followersBlanche McCrary Boyd (born 1945) is an American author whose novels are known for their eccentric characters.
Among the awards Boyd has won are a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993–1994, a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship in 1988, a Creative Writing Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1982–1983 and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing from Stanford University in 1967–1968. She was nominated for the Southern Book Award for The Revolution of Little Girls in 1991, and also won the Lambda Literary Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction that same year. She was nominated for the Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction again in 1997.
(from Wikipedia)
Among the awards Boyd has won are a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993–1994, a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship in 1988, a Creative Writing Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1982–1983 and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing from Stanford University in 1967–1968. She was nominated for the Southern Book Award for The Revolution of Little Girls in 1991, and also won the Lambda Literary Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction that same year. She was nominated for the Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction again in 1997.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 21, 2024
I enjoyed this book. The strongest part is her parody of the radical lesbian ‘70s commune. It’s intimate and hilarious. The latter half of the book makes such a dramatic shift, it’s like I stopped halfway through Alice in Wonderland and picked up Chelsea Girls. Rain suffers the consequences of her recklessness, which I guess is a logical conclusion. But I would have liked to finish the first book.
March 30, 2025
I heart lesbian chaos
July 4, 2018
I Kid, But I Kid Because I Love
Like much of the fiction from the 70's, or about the 70's, this book starts off with a lightweight, almost flippant tone, and then takes you to unexpected and sometimes dark places - tender, wise, surreal, drug addled, but always very human places. There is a good deal of pointed satire, and the radical feminism of the 70's certainly takes its lumps here. (This was published well before white privilege became such a hot topic, but a number of well aimed barbs certainly prefigure that debate as well.) That said, there is also affection and honest regard for such issues, and respect for the characters who struggle with identity and sex and feminism and politics.
Following the classic sitcom format, (although this isn't just Mary Tyler Moore with psilocybin), the first part of the book has Ellen, (Rain), at the center of a whirl of engaging and varied characters. Ellen may not have it all together, but she's trying and she is the sane, (relatively), locus around which everything else in the story turns. The book is peppered with smart one-liners and is loaded with sharp edgy set pieces, (about drugs, sex, freedom, politics, feminist politics, and a whole range of 70's issues of great and not so great moment.)
Because Ellen's voice is refreshing and honest on the page the reader is probably more willing to forgive or overlook some preachy bits and some odd character and plot choices, as well as over reliance on descriptions of drug trips. (Just listen to Grace Slick and "White Rabbit" and you can skip the drug scenes here.) But you have to take the rough with the smooth when you're talking about the 70's, and I guess that goes for reading about it too.
The second half of the book addresses the consequences of a number of bad choices, and brings to the fore the romantic triangle that was clear from even the first pages of the book. This is darker, more dramatic, and more desperate and wrenching than what came before, so that this almost feels like two different books with fun, smart and flirty characters in part one and older, wiser, sadder versions of those characters in part two. I was less invested in this aspect of the book but it seems just as likely that many readers will find this the best part.
Either way this struck me as quite a find, and I understand why this is celebrated as an underappreciated work from an underappreciated author. A nice find.
Like much of the fiction from the 70's, or about the 70's, this book starts off with a lightweight, almost flippant tone, and then takes you to unexpected and sometimes dark places - tender, wise, surreal, drug addled, but always very human places. There is a good deal of pointed satire, and the radical feminism of the 70's certainly takes its lumps here. (This was published well before white privilege became such a hot topic, but a number of well aimed barbs certainly prefigure that debate as well.) That said, there is also affection and honest regard for such issues, and respect for the characters who struggle with identity and sex and feminism and politics.
Following the classic sitcom format, (although this isn't just Mary Tyler Moore with psilocybin), the first part of the book has Ellen, (Rain), at the center of a whirl of engaging and varied characters. Ellen may not have it all together, but she's trying and she is the sane, (relatively), locus around which everything else in the story turns. The book is peppered with smart one-liners and is loaded with sharp edgy set pieces, (about drugs, sex, freedom, politics, feminist politics, and a whole range of 70's issues of great and not so great moment.)
Because Ellen's voice is refreshing and honest on the page the reader is probably more willing to forgive or overlook some preachy bits and some odd character and plot choices, as well as over reliance on descriptions of drug trips. (Just listen to Grace Slick and "White Rabbit" and you can skip the drug scenes here.) But you have to take the rough with the smooth when you're talking about the 70's, and I guess that goes for reading about it too.
The second half of the book addresses the consequences of a number of bad choices, and brings to the fore the romantic triangle that was clear from even the first pages of the book. This is darker, more dramatic, and more desperate and wrenching than what came before, so that this almost feels like two different books with fun, smart and flirty characters in part one and older, wiser, sadder versions of those characters in part two. I was less invested in this aspect of the book but it seems just as likely that many readers will find this the best part.
Either way this struck me as quite a find, and I understand why this is celebrated as an underappreciated work from an underappreciated author. A nice find.
January 4, 2018
Why does this book not have a higher rating?! Picked this up randomly searching for a plane read at a used bookstore. Devoured the whole thing on one flight. Radical lesbians/somewhat fugitives living in a commune discovering themselves & life. I loved it!
August 19, 2023
Sequel to Revolution of Little Girls. Good read, especially if you involved in the lesbian feminist movement of the 60s and 70s. I have to confess to skimming through quite a bit of the drugs and sex, which blended into one another after a while. The Raisin book sequences were hilarious.
September 11, 2019
I went on a Blanche McCrary Boyd bebder in the late 1990s and really enjoyed this one. "A really fun read" is how I described this one and another of her books that I read back-to-back in 1998.
October 29, 2019
This is why no one wants to be a lesbian. We all go crazy, do drugs, and maybe die.
July 31, 2010
Ferociously paced, Terminal Velocity delineates six wonderfully engaging characters: Artemis Foote, for whom being rich, talented, and beautiful is a kind of game; Jordan, a messianic fugitive who becomes Ellen's lover; Amethyst Woman, a Marxist/Leninist dentist; Ross, a red-diaper baby and now a columnist for Ramparts; and Pearl, an art history professor turned hippie. At the center of this vortex is Ellen, prior to her transformation happily married and a rising young editor at a genteel publishing house in Boston. Together with these women, she is caught in a political and moral tailspin of the Sixties, living in a sexualized world-without-boundaries that leads them, eventually, to destruction, acceptance, and even redemption.
I really don't know what to say. What I thought was going to be a feminist novel about women in the sixties turned out to be a very sad story about two women in love with each other. The sex was too graphic for my taste and for me it took away from the story.
I really don't know what to say. What I thought was going to be a feminist novel about women in the sixties turned out to be a very sad story about two women in love with each other. The sex was too graphic for my taste and for me it took away from the story.
August 12, 2012
There was something a little chirpy and magaziney about the writing...absurd contexts (humping cauliflower patches while on acid, for instance) detract from the emotional narrative a little. The central characters are classic white liberal radicals, privileged, over-educated, and under-exposed to reality, so it's hard to take them and their self-created dramas too seriously, especially if you find those kinds of people annoying in real life. Anyone who has found themselves exposed to "lesbian drama", with all its dramatic meltdowns, suicidal tendencies, hyper-emotionalism and AA-style sharing, will recognize these poor little girls. That said I couldn't put this book down. And I wish I could have met Artemis Foote.
January 27, 2017
Re-reading my very favorite book. Ever. Probably forever. The voice of the main character & the dialogue resonate more with me than anything I've ever read. That particular, wry non-sequitor humor is exactly, perfectly mine only better. 23 year old me was dazzled by this book and Ellen/Rain Burns. And years later everything about this book is just as excellent as I remember it. Love you so, so much Blanche McCray Boyd. <3 Please finish this trilogy!
November 6, 2012
This book is probably one of the best-kept secrets in modern literature. Apart from being witty and, at times, utterly hilarious, it also has a heart. You are charmed by the bumbling ways of the ladies at Red Moon Rising. It takes a look at radical feminist culture at its height and you will enjoy every minute of it.
October 8, 2016
The first half of this book will make you really want to try drugs. The second half will make you wonder why anyone ever does any drug ever. It's a beautiful and sometimes campy story about what it takes to break and rebuild yourself anew. "I was determined to reach terminal velocity. I thought something would ease in me. I thought I would be forgiven."
August 8, 2007
ok...radical lesbians of the 70's struggling with love, sex, drugs, failure, insecurities and life (aka "the meaning of"). Lots of lesbian sex and drugs. I have to admit it made me interested in dabbling in a few of the "unmentionables," though. (Heh, heh...)
July 1, 2009
I finished the book. At least I did that. It kept me interested. I'll give it that much. I think my problem with this book is the characters. I don't know if the reader is supposed to be irritated with them, but I sure was.
February 9, 2012
Much more about the thing wedge between bipolar disorder and the disorder of the 60s than lesbianism. I am not recalling as well as I would like The Revolution of Little Girls, but I am too in a different place as Boyd obviously was when she wrote this.
June 18, 2007
Made me want to live in a commune and grow my own food and smoke a lot of weed....
November 13, 2007
i recommend reading this with 'the revolution of little girls' they both intersect in great ways, but this is the superior book in my mind. so unbelievably funny at times.
July 17, 2009
A slice into a life that I will never lead, but makes for an interesting read.
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August 5, 2011Very interesting story
August 12, 2012
Funny and engaging writer. Sort of depressing near the end, but I guess that's just life.
February 4, 2018
When I read this 20 years ago, i thought it was so deep. Now I see how funny it is. It really relies on absurdity for humor, but I enjoy that style.
I think part 3 sort of falls apart a bit. It tried to stuff a lot of storytelling into a small box. There are parts that, on their own, would have provided a great ending.
I think part 3 sort of falls apart a bit. It tried to stuff a lot of storytelling into a small box. There are parts that, on their own, would have provided a great ending.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews